{"id":396,"date":"2008-04-25T19:21:27","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T18:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=396"},"modified":"2014-01-12T13:17:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T13:17:19","slug":"will-estate-prices-rise-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"Will Estate Prices Rise Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The estate price arguments rumble on. It’s hosting\/no it’s not, “Oh yes it is”, “Oh no it isn’t”<\/em><\/p>\n

Amongst the angst and the moaning, amongst the gloating and the jeering there are some points to consider, one of which is whether estate land will actually rise in price again.<\/p>\n

I buy a lot of IT equipment in my day job. Prices have indeed dropped, although I’m not aware of such a rapid price drop on new equipment as Linden Lab have instigated it has indeed been dropping for quite a number of years.<\/p>\n

At work we generally operate PC’s on a three year life cycle, some linger on a bit longer depending upon budgets but it’s generally a three year cycle. During that time some of those PC’s go faulty and need parts replaced. There usually comes a point in year two or three whereby the service contractor phones me up and says “We don’t supply that part anymore, do you mind if we replace those parts with a better motherboard and a better processor”.<\/em> Of course I complain vociferously about this …oh hold on, no I don’t! Although there can be slight implications of a change in hardware with regards to imaging the said PC, we get around that easily enough.<\/p>\n

Then when I’m going to tender to replace those three year old PC’s, the price is a bit lower than last time, but my money is going further. I’m getting better equipment, faster equipment, more RAM, better graphics, better performance all round and when you take inflation into the equation, yes my money goes further.<\/p>\n

However the scenario I describe doesn’t seem to apply to Linden Lab’s model. The transcript from Monday’s Metanomics event is available here<\/a> and it makes pretty interesting reading, especially at the end when they speak to Zee Linden (John Zdanowski). Zee makes some comments that suggest to me that Linden Lab aren’t buying ever evolving kit:<\/p>\n

“I think that the major driver for that decision was a recognition that the hardware costs for us in 2006 were over $1,000 per region, had come down to kind of below $400 per region”<\/em><\/p>\n

A price drop like that suggests to me that they are buying very similar equipment to that they were buying in 2006, that would certainly explain such a price drop. There could be other reasons, buying in bulk always gets you a better deal and Second Life sure has expanded since 2006, but even with bulk discounts that’s a hell of a saving.<\/p>\n

Of course Linden Lab may have merely shopped around, flexed their industry muscles and said “Hey, we’re Linden Lab, don’t quote us those noob prices anymore”.<\/em><\/p>\n

There’s no comment from Zee suggesting hardware pricing will continue downwards, indeed he makes a comment that suggests pretty much the opposite:<\/p>\n

“On the up front fee, I think that is a number that will probably continue to fluctuate as the system changes and as some of the dynamics of the hardware pricing change.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Whereas nobody can predict the hardware pricing of the future it does suggest that at some point Linden Lab won’t be selling hardware that is the modern day equivalent of three year old hardware, they’ll be buying new state of the art hardware and that will be more expensive, which would lead to a price increase and then as that hardware devalues, so will the upfront fees.<\/p>\n

In terms of stability this is a strange strategy but if there are historic precedents then people will get used to the cycles and there will be a lot less wailing and gnashing going on.<\/p>\n

The constant cycle of course is tier fees and there are no indications that these are going to be reduced. I still maintain that tier is the bigger barrier to land ownership than the upfront fee. I’m not even sure what my tier fee pays for, which is ridiculous really considering how expensive it is. I’m not sure why I’m paying USD$100 a month more than someone on a class 4 server or a mainland sim. Just what extra duties do they have to perform to justify that? Maintenance is maintenance, newer systems are often more environmentally friendly and cost less in energy bills. Sure the parts might be more expensive but maintenance contracts generally deal with those and I don’t see why a mainland sim contract would be such a whopping difference in price.<\/p>\n

Does anybody know what we’re paying for and why the price difference is so great?<\/p>\n

However back to the main point, if prices fluctuate, and that means they could go up, then what would that mean for estate owners who have been complaining? They’re going to look a bit silly aren’t they. Whereas right now we have the image of Jack Linden complaining “I’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids”<\/em>, if prices increase Jack will be able to cakcle manically and laugh at the surprised minions. The problem here is that there’s no roadmap. We don’t know what the masterplan is and it leaves many of us dazed and confused when changes are introduced.<\/p>\n

Talking of roadmaps, Second Life could sure do with some WII style controls, my nephew introduced me to the WII tonight and I’m having a hard time holding my arms up after a bout of boxing, that sure is a workout. Now bring controls like that inworld and we can challenge The Lindens to celebrity boxing matches in an ampitheatre and if a resident wins, they don’t change policy and if a Linden wins, they throw us all to the lions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The estate price arguments rumble on. It’s hosting\/no it’s not, “Oh yes it is”, “Oh no it isn’t” Amongst the angst and the moaning, amongst the gloating and the jeering there are some points to consider, one of which is whether estate land will actually rise in price again. I buy a lot of IT … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Will Estate Prices Rise Again?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,14,647],"tags":[95,19,1022],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-6o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3530,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}